Realistic but ambitious measures were needed to curb illicit trafficking in small arms and light weapons, the Irish Ambassador to the United Nations, Mr Richard Ryan, told a UN conference on the issue in New York.
"Ireland, which has recently witnessed 30 years of terrorism involving small arms and light weapons, knows full well the impact of small arms and light weapons in conditions of civil division and discord," he said.
States affected by the "scourge of small arms and light weapons in all its aspects" must have the capacity to trace the lines of supply of illegal weapons back to the manufacturers and producer-states.
It was equally important that all weapon-manufacturing states exercised greater constraints on the export of small arms and light weapons and that they stamped out exports of them other than to governments or those authorised to procure on behalf of governments.
"All states must take steps to suppress private ownership of small arms and light weapons and introduce and implement the penal constraints necessary to prevent the spread of such weapons among the population. Controls over firearms used for sporting and other lawful purposes must also be tightly exercised."
Mr Ryan said an international, legally-binding instrument providing affected states with the capacity to enable them effectively to trace illicit transfers would be an important step in the fight against illicit trafficking.
"Such an instrument would undoubtedly take time to develop but we would hope that this conference will set in motion the process leading to the negotiation of such an instrument."
He said that the conference should initiate a process of examining how arms brokers, "whose activities the Security Council has so emphatically condemned for their nefarious role in current regional conflicts", could be controlled.
This was the moment to put in motion a process to tackle this issue and "we should assert our determination in this regard", Mr Ryan said.
The conference, which continues over the next fortnight, has seen a difference of approach between the European Union states, including Ireland, on the one hand, and the United States and Russia, on the other. The US Under-Secretary of State for Arms Control, Mr John Bolton, opposed provisions in a UN draft document that impinged on rights of citizens to bear arms and put restrictions on the legitimate weapons trade.
The European Union, including Ireland, supports proposals in the draft document for (1) a ban on private ownership of small arms and light weapons, except for sporting or other lawful purposes, and (2) mechanisms for fully tracing the origin of illegal weapons which may have originally been traded legitimately.
The Russian delegate, Mr Sergei Ordzhonikidze, said it was clear that legally exported weapons found their way into illegal trade but he opposed suggestions for the monitoring of the legal transfers of arms. "That is not the purpose of our meeting."